A Different Path
by PJC
Summary: Really random story, will only be a few chapters. What would happen if Sara's life had taken a seriously different turn. Still GSR they still meet . GSR.
1. Chapter 1

_Hey everyone, I'm Back!! Was off on a major huge-as holiday (won't get out of the country for another 20 years now (if I'm lucky) but was worth it) still not quite human and back at the right time yet. But had this floating around my head (who can blame me I did go on 10 flights) just a story to get me back into writing and try and kill the hours before I'm allowed to go to sleep to try and get back into a regular sleep pattern._

_Also will reply to anything I needed to and look at all new chapters and stuff at some point, I will get there in the end._

* * *

Sara ran through the actions barely registering them or the voice of the woman behind her, wondering yet again if this was what she really wanted, if this was all she would get from life. She had no interest in it, it was mindless, tedious, dull and repetitive. She wanted to do something with her life, where she had to test her mind more often, where she made a difference, where she had the slightest chance of a normal home, normal life, one like the one she had always dreamt of and been denied when she was younger.

Maybe things would have been different if her mum had ever had the courage to do anything. Sara had found out that her mother had tried to kill her father, things became even worse after that, the abuse and the violence reached new levels, the verbal abuse reached levels Sara couldn't have even imagined, her brother had left as soon as he hit 16 complete with his drug addiction. She hadn't heard anything about him in years.

Now she flew from country to country, forced to smile almost constantly even though she felt like crying, never having a home, wondering what the point was, after all she'd only been there for half the year.

That was the life of an air stewardess, she spent half her life in one hotel, half in another, never in any one country long enough to make a home or a family.

That had been the original attraction to this life, she had signed up for more regular flights than anyone else and did so every time they had to renew their contracts and say how often they'd be willing to fly. She barely saw the cities she stayed in, something she had craved: new places, new people, new situations, no-one ever became close enough to you to hurt you.

Sara heard the voice of the woman behind her ask the crew to return to their stations for take-off and lapsed out of her reverie. She sat at the front of the plane, it was only a 3 hour flight today, only a small plane, no first class, no business class, just all the passengers merged together, sat in their chairs, entrusting her and her peers with their lives.

She stared straight ahead, everyone's faces just a blur, all faceless passengers at this point in time, she'd already identified which ones would cause her trouble and which she would be summoned to a thousand times during the flight, the ones who had never flown before, the ones who flew almost as regularly as her, the business-men, those on that were on holiday, in short, all the usual people who came on this flight.

Yet she was still having problems classing one passenger. She had at least 10 different categories and every passenger she had ever met fit into one of the categories easily, she had never yet met one who she had judged wrongly or who she couldn't place into one of these categories either instantaneously or after a very brief conversation. Yet this man still puzzled her.

His eyes gave nothing away, nor did his stance. She could tell nothing about him, and couldn't even begin to guess which category he belonged in. She continued to watch him as they climbed higher into the sky, he looked straight at her and seemed to look straight into her. She was caught in his sapphire gaze, unable to look away.

* * *

_OK, this was going to be a one-shot and was going to be longer than this (this obviously isn't the ending as anyone whose read my stuff will know this isn't my kind of ending) but will now turn into a short story._

_Let me know what you think so far. I'm sure you can all work out who the blue eyes belonged to._

_BTW just so you know this isn't what I think about air stewards and stewardess', I have great respect for them if they can do that job then well done to them, I know I couldn't do it, and no-one seems to give them enough credit._

_But anyway, please review and let me know what you think. Thanks._


	2. Chapter 2

_Tried starting with Grissoms reaction to her 19 times (seriously) and just couldn't get it to work at all, so this chapter wasn't what I expected it to be but hope it's ok anyway._

_This has really turned out weirder than I thought, it wasn't meant to turn out this ... creepy._

_Think it might recover ish towards the end and hopefully next chapter should get less creepy again._

* * *

As soon as she could, Sara was standing up and trying to go about her tasks, trying to keep her mind on anything except the man she had just seen. She had long ago developed the techniques of avoiding topics she didn't want to think of, she sealed him in a back corner of her mind and forced the image to stay back there, she was not going to let him take over her mind. But every-so-often she found herself summoning an image of him, unsure why she felt such a tie to him.

After her father she now found it hard to trust men, any men, even those she had known for years she was still cautious around, including one of her fellow stewards. But now she felt at ease around him, the man she didn't know managing to calm her fears somehow, as though she trusted him and therefore had learned how to trust a man.

She found herself staring at the back of his seat, hoping that he would press the call button, so that she could respond and have an excuse to talk to him. Yet somehow she knew that he wouldn't press it, he had that self-confidence about him that meant he wouldn't need to check anything with them, and there was also a shyness about him which she knew would make him reluctant to press the button. It seemed impossible that he could be both at the same time, and yet he was and that made him all the more intriguing,

She also found herself waiting until it was time to serve the meal and she could at least hear his voice and maybe find out more about him. She had already checked the list of vegetarian meals against his seat number and hadn't found it on there, he also had no allergies which they needed to know about, leaving her with no more information than she had begun with.

Wandering down the isles ensuring everyone was ok, she couldn't help but stop for a second and watch him as he slept lightly, before catching herself as she realised what she was doing and carrying on.

Seeing him and knowing he was ok, somehow, made her calmer. She was also slightly relieved at the fact that she hadn't had to speak to him, scared that, if she had, he might have picked up on her nervousness and confusion.

She carried on about her work with the efficiency she had always done it with, and now resolutely keeping him out of her mind. She had been a fool to even think about him that much. Besides she was a member of the cabin crew and he was a passenger, what would he see in her? What could she actually do without jeopardising her job? What did she want from him anyway?

Nothing could ever happen between them. She wasn't even sure she wanted something to happen between them. Forcing her mind blank, like it normally was when she was flying, she finally managed to persuade herself that nothing was wrong, that she didn't want anything to happen anyway and that there was nothing special about the man at all.

Yet somehow she lacked the conviction that what she had persuaded herself to think was right, and didn't quite believe herself.

No matter how much she tried to deny it, there was something about him; something that she had never seen in another man, and knew she never would again.


End file.
